Back in the Saddle With the Weekly Link Round-Up

There's nothing like having a week's worth of blogging scheduled so you can go on holiday with a completely clear conscience, coming back from holiday spoiled by having those posts done, and then becoming ill before you get back into the swing of things. That's what happened to me, and it doesn't help that this is the time of year when the book calls... but the keyboard doesn't.

Denis and I had an almost perfect holiday down in Bisbee. We mainly stayed right around the cottage up in the Mule Mountains. I found the perfect spot to birdwatch in the mornings, then I would go inside in the afternoons to read. I know-- rough life! The only thing that marred the holiday for me was the continuing wildfires trying to burn down the state of Arizona. Shortly after we returned from Bisbee, another one started in Sierra Vista and came within eight miles of the cottage.

All I can say is that I am so glad that I've seen so much of this beautiful state pre-wildfire. There are ONE MILLION acres of forest land that won't recover within my lifetime, so I have to rely on memory, which tells me that regardless what another resident of the state thinks, most of these fires were caused by stupidity and greed, not illegal immigrants.

ACK! On to some links!


Bookish Quizzes & Lists

• 250 books by women all men should read.
• Dogs in fiction quiz.
• Controversial couples in literature.
• The Naipaul Test: Can you tell an author's sex?
• Top Ten Westerns.
• Literary characters who should be tweeting.
• Crime fiction picks for summertime suspense.
• Top ten childhood memoirs.
• 11 Novels for Summer Reading.
• Flavorpill's 10 most anticipated summer reads.
• Top ten pirate books-- arrrgh!
• Ten most powerful women authors.
• 10 novels about lost wealth and the Great Recession.
• Top ten funny teen boy books.
• A summer's worth of French reading.
• The 100 greatest non-fiction books.
• A Tennis in Literature quiz.

Bookish Travel & Architecture & Other Visual Goodness

• 10 of the best literary haunts in Barcelona, Spain.
• A private and serene house library in the forest.
• 25 blissful pictures of books and reading.
• Alphanumeric shelving cubes form a modular bookcase system.
• The bookshop pianist.
• Three havens in London for bookish travelers.
• More Bookshelf Porn... because we just can't resist.

eBooks

• Kindle tablet to support streaming video.
• Reading in the Cloud.
• 5 reasons why e-books aren't there yet.

Bookish News & Tidbits

• The sun is the best optometrist.
• Go the F*ck to Your Local Bookstore.
• The British Library makes a deal with Google search engine.
• Book rescue turns into a nightmare for Saskatoon couple.
• A library is many things.
• Why the world needs editors.
• A nine-year-old London boy says, "The only book in our house is the Argos catalogue."

New to My Google Reader

• Reading Matters
• Suko's Notebook
• Regular Rumination
• An Armchair by the Sea
• Charlotte's Library
• The Turn of the Page
• Mad Bibliophile
• The Book Blogger
• Arabic Literature (in English)

I hope you found a URL or two that piqued your fancy. Don't forget to stop by next weekend when I'll have a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure!